TIPS/DPRU Forum 2003: the challenge of Growth and Poverty – The South African Economy Since Democracy (40)

There are two major economic and social security challenges facing South Africa: addressing large-scale unemployment and the AIDS pandemic. As of 2003, an estimated 14% of all South Africans were HIV-positive, with over a thousand people dying each day of AIDS. According to the government household and labour-force surveys conducted…

This paper will identify differences in sector development in countries that have proceeded along various paths for sector reform. International experience demonstrates that economies adopting a more ambitious path for liberalization and market- friendly forms of subsidization perform better after liberalization. Economies that adopt both a policy of liberalization and…

Our understanding of the concept of poverty has improved and deepened considerably in the last three decades or so following Amartya Sen's seminal work. We possess presently the analytical tools to identify and locate the poor, to describe their characteristics and to measure the extent of poverty at different levels…

Even though the approaches, assumptions and results may vary greatly in the macroeconomic models employed in estimating the impact of HIV/AIDS on the South African economy, the overriding message that these models convey remains the same: the cost of HIV/AIDS to South Africa will be significant in economic, social and…

This paper looks at social mobility in the context of a growing economy. The nature and extent of Black affluence in South Africa provides an indicator of the impact of efforts to eradicate the remnants of apartheid-era racial discrimination in the South African education system and labour market. Most studies…

The province of KwaZulu-Natal (henceforth KZN) is an important contributor to overall national economic performance in South Africa. In 1996, data from the Census of Manufacturing emphasised that KZN ranked second after Gauteng across a series of economic indicators (see for instance Annex Table 1 - part 1, p. 86).…

This paper uses the Johansen VECM estimation technique to examine the directions of association between savings and growth in South Africa over the period 1946- 1992. We examine the aggregate private saving rate and its interaction with investment and growth. The paper finds that the private saving rate has a…

The South African economy is unable to deliver employment for a growing number of would-be workers, especially among the unskilled. There is a need for state intervention to address this failure, and public works have been identified in the national policy discourse as a central policy response, to address both…

South Africa simultaneously lost more than 890,000 jobs and increased the number of skilled workers from 1989 to 1999. We argue this is the consequence of well-documented acute apartheidera distortions which led to a current coordination failure where (i) firms are locked into a mostly skill-intensive technology where they have…

Section 1 examines South Africa's comparative industrial performance over approximately the last two decades – manufacturing value added (MVA), manufactured exports in aggregate and exports of dynamic manufactured products, and industrial structure. Two “equity dimensions” of this performance that feature strongly in government's objectives for manufacturing are then outlined –…

Poverty in South Africa is severe. Zero-rating food can possibly reduce poverty as poor households spend the largest proportion of their income on food. Zero-rating food can also reduce the regressiveness of Value Added Tax (VAT) for the same reason. However, zero-rating food will results in a loss in revenue…

Poverty is multi- faceted and can be manifested in hunger, unemployment, exploitation and lack of access to clean water, sanitation, health-care and education. Poverty is not confined to any one racial group in South Africa, but it is concentrated amongst Blacks, particularly Africans. There is a need to monitor poverty…

In 2000 the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) of the South African government announced its plan to break Spoornet into separate businesses and concession them to the private-sector. Two years later, after more than eight months engagement with the railway trade unions, government accepted that this plan made no developmental,…

A priority for the post-apartheid government was the extension of basic infrastructure services to the vast majority of citizens that were not serviced under apartheid. The Reconstruction and Development Programme set objectives for each of these utilities that would be achieved in the first decade of democracy, while departmental policy…

This study evaluates South African privatisation or restructuring programme. In the main, it has largely focused on divestiture of "non- core business" such as broadcasting stations, resorts, and related services in the transport sector as well as selling minority stakes in utilities to so-called strategic equity partners and Black Economic…

The debate around the privatisation of state owned assets has focused around economic efficiency gains and regulation. Very few studies have considered the fiscal impact of privatisation on the tax-payers. Even the few empirical studies conducted were done in industrialised countries where institutions and markets are well developed. This paper…

Under Government's GEAR policy, high levels of expenditure on social services (i.e. Social Development, Health, Education and Housing), failed to bring about a reduction in poverty and unemployment. The Government, in particular the National Treasury, blamed this outcome on the inefficiency in the delivery of social services. The "Left", especially…

The aim of this paper is to investigate the empirical relationship between productivity, real wages and unemployment in South Africa using appropriate time series econometric techniques. The value of this approach is that it imposes no a priori theoretical assumptions on the relations between the variables, but rather allows the…

Mainstream economics and the Washington Consensus caution against industrial policies that target sectors, firms and regions. At the most they favour cross-sectoral policies which address generalised market failures. This paper analyses the success of an industry-specific policy, South Africa's Motor Industry Development Programme. It documents significant learning processes and shows…

The purpose in this paper is to provide a framework for the analysis of the relationship between different macroeconomic, sector and commodity policies and the multiplier effects of agriculture. To this end, the paper starts with a listing of the macroeconomic, sector and commodity policies that have been included in…

This report was prepared for National Treasury to support its assessment of administered prices in South Africa. The objective of the study was to assess the processes involved in setting prices in regulated industries. By evaluating the efficiency, effectiveness and analytical rigour of the regulatory processes involved in setting prices…

The links between BEE and competition policy are outlined in the Competition Act of 1998. It is recognised in the preamble to the Act that competition law has to specifically address the excessive concentration of ownership and control of the economy and the unjust restrictions on the full participation of…